The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[Coyote]

you open it at your own risk

I MEAN IT

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[crawlkill]

well, it wasn't really "together" before the end. it just could've made itself worthwhile and failed completely.

Can someone please tell me that there are more to the sidequest than these Far Cry-esque "Go to these corners of the map and pick these up" filler missions?

Please.

That's basically it. And they turn out to have no consequence whatsoever, double-invalidating them. Seriously, I can't stress enough that not a single sidething or the content of any zone had any bearing on any other part of the narrative. They really were exactly like MMO quests. You just do them and they're done and yay, now they're done. Occasionally they'll change the kind of random enemies wandering around a zone that you wish weren't there in the first place because it's just the same goddamn fucking two or three encounters over and fucking OVER again.

gaaah

so let's talk about two of the sidethings. one has you running around finding these planetarium orbs, which show you a picture of a constellation and a set of stars and ask you to connect the dots without retracing your steps. kind of simplistic, especially considering the -only other puzzle in the entire game- uses the exact same 'walk without retrace' mechanic, but whatever, a few of them required a minute or two of staring (I'm not that great at that kind of spatial logic). so I'm thinking, alright, each of these I complete unlocks a lore object that discusses the history of the constellation it describes, so I bet when I complete them all there'll be this side star-temple where we'll get some insight into the history of the world--like, to the Tevintir, a lot of the constellations represented old gods, right? so maybe we'll finally get to see a little more about what the old gods -were,- apart from just DWAGONS.

nope. the game didn't even notice that I'd finished them all. there was no interconnection, no bigger picture. just three connect-the-dots puzzles per zone that would point you to a loot cave.

also throughout the game, there are these skull things, orariums (oraria). you go into first person perspective and look around a bit to locate between one and five 'shards' that become visible when the center of your visions nears them. you can then go collect them. they lead to this temple with three sets of ever-deeper doors toward the back. each one requires X shards to open, and each layer you penetrate increases your main character's resistance to an element permanently. there's a fourth door near the front that's only available once you've finished all those behind the first three.

"Okay," think I. "I bet if I get them all there'll be some unique encounter behind there! or some deep secret! something truly tantalizing to make collecting all this bullshit worthwhile!"

nope. it was just one room with a perfectly ordinary pride demon encounter in it, the like of which I'd done many, many times already at the rifts.

oh, the rifts! the icons on my map! there are, what, between three and nine in every zone, maybe more? I wonder, say I, if when I've closed them all something final will come around! some major completionist challenge, a 'the pressure is bursting, quick, go take on this unique encounter and affect the plot in a meaningful way someone who hadn't done all the things wouldn't be able to' moment!

nope! game never mentioned that I'd sealed every rift.

seriously, -they are just side shit and literally nothing else.- one or two unlock wartable operations, which in turn unlock nothing. one or two can get you a mount, I guess? if the mounts don't make you want to kill yourself, which they should.

if Fallout 2's ending montage (bugginess aside) is a model of "congrats, you did good and fucked up, here's how!" then this game isn't even an RPG. this is Assassin's Creed. the side shit is just blurted all over your map to embigger your numbers. it serves zero narrative function, and playing it out is almost always just a question of going to a place, killing a guy, and occasionally using your Ecco the dolphin skills to find a hidden object.

I'm not sure it even qualifies as a "game." it's just...a wandering around simulator with combat you could sleep through after one hour endlessly mirrored over one hundred with zero variation in encounter design. none. oh, there are, like, two and a half different kinds of dragon. that's as experimental as they got.

 

[Jick Magger]

Oh god, at least tell me the fucking companions get their own proper quests and none of this shit I've been getting so far.

Fuck the mounts I don't even want to talk about the mounts, the literal tank controls from the PC port of Valkyria Chronicles felt less fucking awkward and clunky than handling those fucking mounts. I don't even understand how they could make horse-riding feel so fucking awful when they were touting this as one of the main features of the fucking game, it's legitimately mind-boggling.

 

[Morality Games]

Oh god, at least tell me the fucking companions get their own proper quests and none of this shit I've been getting so far.

Fuck the mounts I don't even want to talk about the mounts, the literal tank controls from the PC port of Valkyria Chronicles felt less fucking awkward and clunky than handling those fucking mounts. I don't even understand how they could make horse-riding feel so fucking awful when they were touting this as one of the main features of the fucking game, it's legitimately mind-boggling.

Pressing the '=' key for your mount is generally more responsive than using the mouse cursor, imo. Every little bit helps.

Yeah, companions get proper quests -- some more so than others.

 

[RK47]

Oh god, at least tell me the fucking companions get their own proper quests and none of this shit I've been getting so far.

Yes, that's the only worthwhile video of sidequests I've shown in the LP.
The rest...past 20 hour mark I can't be bothered to partake in any of them.

 

[TedNugent]

Hurrgh

Did anyone actually buy this shit

Just looking at the images is making me feel ill

 

[AngryKobold]

you open it at your own risk

I MEAN IT

Spoiler

:D :D :D

Bioware employees are so smart they don't even know what's gonna get fucked up after applying a "fix" changing some global settings. At the same time they seem to have no time or method to efficiently check if it doesn't fuck anything. That's a mistake reserved for amateurs producing shitphone apps. Not for AAAAAAA+++ business.

You may say it's a minor issue, not breaking the game. As long as you didn't plan to fap to this mammal. I say fuck you, that's because they don't even try to tinker with serious parts for adults only. Like memory management. We're talking about bright geniuses having problems with keeping player gender info unchanged through the game.

Patrick Weekes retweeted
John Epler ‏@eplerjc 28m28 minutes ago
If you're running into the graphical issues caused by the patch, add -ShaderSystem.ShaderQualityLevel <Quality Level> to your commandline

"All you have to do is to hack the system a little by typing in command line you were never intended to use a command you should neither know nor care about. It's so simple and obvious, I don't understand what the all fuss is about."

:D :D :D

Bioware has just reached "linuxtard" level of insanity.

 

[Johannes]

Patrick Weekes retweeted
John Epler ‏@eplerjc 28m28 minutes ago
If you're running into the graphical issues caused by the patch, add -ShaderSystem.ShaderQualityLevel <Quality Level> to your commandline

"All you have to do is to hack the system a little by typing in command line you were never intended to use a command you should neither know nor care about. It's so simple and obvious, I don't understand what the all fuss is about."

:D :D :D

Bioware has just reached "linuxtard" level of insanity.

So it would be better if they didn't let you know that there's a fix you can use in the meantime of them releasing a new patch to patch the patch up?

 

[Franny Frogpill]

I stumbled across IncGamers a couple of days ago when they complained about DA:I's PC controls. Does anybody know something about them?

[describes PC controls]

Hehe, that was ambiguous. I wanted to find out more about IncGamers, not about the controls.

 

[Grinolf]

What is name of the music that was used during the battle?

 

[PhantasmaNL]

The PC only gfx bug which ages your toon to 90+ is pretty hilarious (it didnt happen to my inq though).

Once again this emphasizes BWs doesnt care at all about the PC platform. Since this patch took some time to make, you assume some testing was involved. However apparently no one thought it would be wise to check to PC version, seeing something this obvious got past "QA".

 

[Abu Antar]

Hilarious? I was trying to search for the aging feature in CC but couldn't find it. I always play as an experienced adventurer when possible.

My favorite created character would have to be my Mage from Dragon's Dogma. Dude looked like Saruman.

 

[Renfri]

What is name of the music that was used during the battle?

Dragon fight: Christopher Tin - Baba Yetu
last time fighting dude: Naruto OST 1 - Strong and Strike

 

[Jick Magger]

I didn't see any mention of them fixing the Quanari armor bug, which means that if you're a quanari player and actually want to wear a set of non-customizable armor without having it render improperly and instead default to your undergarments, then you're still shit out of luck over three weeks after launch!

 

[Grinolf]

Dragon fight: Christopher Tin - Baba Yetu

Thanks. It definitely sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember where I heard it, so it kept bothering me.

 

[Johannes]

Dragon fight: Christopher Tin - Baba Yetu

Thanks. It definitely sounded familiar, but I couldn't remember where I heard it, so it kept bothering me.

Yeah you heard it here

 

[RK47]

 

[Branm]

For whatever it's worth, the patch is up on Origin.

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/

That's actually a pretty decent patch for two weeks in.

No mention at all about the tactical camera??? LOLs....

 

[crawlkill]

On the subject of embarrassing "how did this happen" graphical problems, Flemeth appears in exactly one scene (it's a relatively good scene, to be fair, although marred by the presence of the WORST FUCKING VOICE ACTOR AND DIALOGUE IN TIME from Morrigan's godbaby) and her crown-thing is clipping into her cheeks. like, it's not subtle. they're clearly buried in her flesh. and not in a 'this is how it's supposed to look' way. in a geometry way.

for anyone curious/who might have a better view on it than I do, by the way, this is the "grand story" they're going for, inasmuch as I can piece it together, which would've been a lot more interesting if it'd ever gotten any exposition instead of the whole game being treated as a teaser for the idea:

Spoiler

Thedas is obsessed with singing. "lyrium" itself, as was pointed out on reddit, is potentially derived from Latin words that we owe things like "lyrical" to as well. this is all very much hooked into the Maker: the Andrasteans do the whole 'Chant of Light' and are specifically obsessed with song as a means of worship, even if they can't write lyrics for shit. SOME DAY SOON THE DAWN WILL COME.

it's implied that this Maker-song force is, if not actually malign, at least not what it appears to be. at one point in Inquisition the Templars--of the non-EBIL variety--are described as being hooked into something old and hungry through their lyrium addiction, which is what gives them their (incredibly shitty) antimage powers.

in Thedas dwarves can't do magic ever because they have no connection to the Fade, but that also makes them, along with Tranquil mages who've been taken out of the Fade's address book, uniquely capable of handling lyrium. lyrium is way poisonous in its unprocessed form, but dwarves and Tranquil are immune to its effect (largely--there's a dwarf in DAO who got lyrium poisoned, survived, but sort of seems senile now, not sure if that's been retconned or what, because in theory it shouldn't be possible). Dagna's a character from DAO who shows up again in Inquisition, a dwarf who loved magic and went off to study it even though she couldn't do it herself. if you quiz her as you hand things off to her throughout the game, she actually has an insight into the nature of lyrium and becomes "bigger than herself" for a second, like she has a momentary connection to the Fade. she speculates that since only dwarves and Tranquil can work with lyrium, they must be connected in some way, and further wonders if lyrium isn't like a river--if it can touch you, it wants to drag you along with it, which in this case means 'kill the shit out of you.'

during Flemeth's cryptic speech toward the end, she says something along the lines of "so long as the song keeps playing we must all dance to the tune." this is shortly before it's revealed that she is what she is because she shares the soul-ish thing of an old elven god and steals the archdemon soul (I hate that word and I hate having to use it repeatedly in a short span even more) from Morrigan's WORST FUCKING VOICE ACTOR AND DIALOGUE IN TIME kid. I imagine this doesn't necessarily happen if the kid doesn't have the soul in your game--haven't tried it that way, never will, fuck Inquisition. relevant in a couple paragraphs will be a line here: Morrigan has been shrieking about how Flemeth wants to steal her body, and just before leaving Flemeth says (good delivery and facial animation, bad dialogue) that "no body can be forced to accept a soul, you were never in any danger from me."

what does definitely happen in every game is the epilogue, where Solas, your "I lub the Fade and spirits" mage, goes to visit Flemeth in some elven temple-looking otherspace. she calls him by the name of the old elven god who is (falsely, according to an immortal elf you run across) thought to have imprisoned all the other elven gods outside the world. given that this is just the trailer for their ongoing blurt of glacial storytelling, we've actually seen this implied before (there was a statue of Solas' godsoul thing in the temple of Flemeth's godsoul-thing; if you find it, educated NPC companions can point out 'hey, wasn't he supposed to be a traitor?' and faithful NPCs go 'ANDRASTEANS PUT ANDRASTE'S BETRAYER IN THEIR TEMPLES' and players are meant to go HMMM I WONDER IF WE'VE BEEN LIED TO.

Solas reveals that he'd given Corypheus "the orb" that Cory used to prolapse the sky--it'd broken after what we might laughably call the climactic encounter and Solas had been suspiciously miserable about it. he tells Flemeth he couldn't unlock its power after "his long slumber." he says he deserves to die for what he did, but that "the People" (capitalized, elves, presumably) need him. he and Flemeth get all close and exchange "I'm sorry"s, and then something ambiguous happens: there's a soul-exchange lookin thing like when Flemeth snatched the OGB's meta-essence (which appeared not to harm OGB's human side at all). the wiki thinks that this is Solas stealing Flemeth's god-nature, but in light of the "only a willing body can accept a soul" line, I think this is actually Flemeth possessing Solas, who is clearly "willing" in that he thinks he deserves to be punished with extermination. Flemeth's original body dies; Solas' body, ambiguous who's running it, lowers it to the ground as it appears to turn to stone, for who knows what reason.

so what the fuck does it all mean? my guess, to take the most wildly speculative approach, is that "the Creator" was actually some possibly-eldritch entity who showed up on the scene late in Thedas' prehistory and didn't like how things were run, or possibly an as-yet unspecified ancient elven deity who got ideas above its station. it kicked the (other) elven gods' asses but couldn't quite kill them, so they ended up semimythical aspects of the world, mostly dormat. when the Tevintir entered the Golden/Black City, the Maker didn't cast them out; it actually fucking exploded, which is when lyrium entered the world (this would be a good place for citation--is there solid evidence lyrium has always existed? not sure there can be, actually, since histories in DA are often deliberately written to be wrong). some semblance of the Maker still exists, or maybe lyrium can just act in concert--but what it really wants is to converge on itself again, which process seems to involve, either deliberately or as a side-effect, killing the shit out of people who work with lyrium. it's also possible that, rather than wanting to be restored, it wants to die and take the world with it, rather than existing in its fractured state. on some level, it's capable of manipulating and orchestrating events at a very large scale. this is "the music."

meanwhile, the gods it betrayed (Flemeth refers to her godsoul-buddy as having been betrayed repeatedly, but not by the Solassoul-buddy legend thinks did it) have started waking up. Flemeth's has been around for a long time; Solas' appears to've come to just recently. realizing the scale of the threat that the shattered Maker poses, Flemeth and her godsoul buddy devise a plan: they need to perform a convergence of their own, collecting up into one body enough of the ancient power of Thedas (another theme of DAI, Morrigan is obsessed with how much more magical the world used to be) to opposed and dissolve the Maker before it can either recompose itself or pull off the end of the world. by the end of DAI, Solas' body contains at least two and possibly three ancient godbuddies--at least the two elven ones and, if you had the OGB, one of the Tevintir old gods.

wow, that ended up longer than I thought it'd be. I -hope- that's the direction they're going; as cosmic struggles go, that would at least be fairly original, and at least it would undermine the whole Creator thing completely, which is facile as shit.

what it doesn't quite explain is why the Maker created the Cult of Andraste, if indeed it did. maybe it anticipated the subsequent creation of the templars, who, by developing lyrium addictions, let it feed off of their corroding "souls" or whatever? that seems roundabout, though. if I wanted people to chug lyrium all day, I'd probably make a cult of lyrium lunches, not one that might give rise to a sub-order of lyrium fiends.

anyway this has been my attempt to find some kind of meaning in all that time I sank into this mire

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Only positive thing in the patch is the search tweak which now shows found items as dots on your mini map / radar. This is an improvement. And apparently your inq doesnt change voice when you meet your custom Hawke.

 

[AngryKobold]

:D :D :D

Now it looks exactly like the aborted child of australian Sir- Tech, that one Cleve wrote about. World filled with fags and ugly, old women. Would keep it. That's just perfect. Majestic!

 

[Morality Games]

I think I know where the DA franchise is going:

The Maker is not in his city, you have three choices:

Destroy the Golden Power plus all dwarves die
Control the Golden Power
Merge with the Golden Power

Also:

The Darkspawn cannot be destroyed, you have three choices:

Destroy the Blight plus all dwarves die
Control the Blight
Merge with the Blight

 

[Franny Frogpill]

anyway this has been my attempt to find some kind of meaning in all that time I sank into this mire

Good, good. Now have a cup of tea, dear. Everything is going to be alright...

 

[Morality Games]

For whatever it's worth, the patch is up on Origin.

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/

That's actually a pretty decent patch for two weeks in.

No mention at all about the tactical camera??? LOLs....

http://blog.bioware.com/2014/12/09/dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2-notes/

• [PC] Added an option to enable / disable tactical camera on mouse wheel scroll out.

 

[crawlkill]

Only positive thing in the patch is the search tweak which now shows found items as dots on your mini map / radar. This is an improvement. And apparently your inq doesnt change voice when you meet your custom Hawke.

the only patch note I want to see for other poor fools doing what I did to myself is the complete removal of looting animations and ensuring that fucking companion missions trigger regardless of what order you're doing things in